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Interesting article. I have sister cats. One meows a lot and the other rarely meows at all. Even when the quiet one does meow, it is usually when there's a bug on the ceiling or something. She purrs a lot, though. My big fuzzy boy will sit in the window and howl. When I call his name he runs to me and starts telling me what he's so excited about. Of course, I don't speak cat. Whatever it was, he just had to tell me. If I talk to him, he talks back.
When my sister's cat sees something he wants but can't get (like a laser dot on the ceiling) he opens his mouth, but no real meow comes out. It's like a clicking noise. Weird. I've seen a few other cats do it.
Mickey used to "chatter" when he saw birds at the window bird feeder. He did not meow much, and he had a very soft mew.
Jasper talks a lot. Usually only when I have been gone, he greets me and discusses the day.
Pierre was hilarious...Siamese have very DEFINITE personalities, and opinions on everything. Once we went on a trip for a week, and he was stuck with a catsitter, and had to spend the week with his "little brother" (Mickey), whom he HATED, anyway when we came home he loudly meowed for an hour! And he was saying--"and then HE did this, and then HE did that!". (I will admit Mickey was trying, he would sneak up on Pierre, reach out to make sure he was dead asleep, he would back up and do a running JUMP and grab Pierre in a headlock).
One of my cats doesn't just meow, he plain talks. He's a siamese cross like his sister but has a gray tabby phenotype, while the sister has the dark points and blue eyes.
Anyway, boy cat can get a little...rambunctious at times and sometimes needs a time-out if I'm working on something important. So I'll put him in another room or in their large cage for a few minutes.
He literally says, "Ma-ma! Aw naw! Aw naw!", as if he's trying to say "oh no". Then when I let him out he'll nearly rub the skin off me with displays of affection.
His sister, on the other hand, is very calm and likes to cuddle and chirp out of contentment...all the time. She likes to return my blinks to tell me she's happy and relaxed rather than meow loudly.
One of my cats, Dolly, has never uttered a sound. She opens her mouth and she meows in silence. She was a feral I caught 9 years ago. I had another cat, who passed on, that would talk to me non-stop when I came home from work. She would keep this up for an hour! I guess she was tattleing on the other ones.
I see that comment all the time that cats don't meow to one another, but I guess my cats never got that memo, because they do meow to one another, quite frequently. And brrrup and meep and chirp too. They talk to me, they talk to each other, they talk to themselves, it is never silent here.
My youngest tabby was a talker. When I found her as a stray and put her in my car, she talked the whole way home--like she was telling me her story. Well, it never stopped. For her, I think it was insecurity and a way to make herself feel more "heard." The other ones were quiet, although I had an orange/white male once who made a funny "Oooow, ooooow" noise. Same one who'd open and close the cabinet doors at night.
I've heard that cats don't talk to each other, but my cats do. If Cooper sees that Fritz is about to pounce on him or try to play and Cooper doesn't want to he meows, like he's saying "please, not now." And I've noticed now that Fritz is growing up he listens more to those requests! Cooper talks a lot to me and Fritz only meows when he needs me for something, like when he can't reach a bug.
I've heard that cats don't talk to each other, but my cats do. If Cooper sees that Fritz is about to pounce on him or try to play and Cooper doesn't want to he meows, like he's saying "please, not now." And I've noticed now that Fritz is growing up he listens more to those requests! Cooper talks a lot to me and Fritz only meows when he needs me for something, like when he can't reach a bug.
I love it!
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